Kinnettles Tea Garden, Angus
@teagardensofscotland
@kinnettlesgold
We welcome visitors ONLY by prior appointment.
Kinnettles Tea Garden Tour costs and information
About Kinnettles
Welcome to Kinnettles Tea Garden. We are located in the Strathmore Valley on the North East Coast of Scotland in Angus and have been growing tea here since 2007. We sold our first commercial crop of our handmade Kinnettles Gold in 2015 to tea merchants Pekoe Tea in Edinburgh who continue to stock our tea today.
Kinnettles Tea Garden is part of our arable farming business Walker-Munro Farms. Tea was seen as a means of diversification for our farm into a high end crop when we first started this adventure, little appreciating what a full time all encompassing passion it would become!
Our Tea Garden:
We are spread out over a couple of acres around our farmhouse with tea plants under polytunnels from which we pluck our Kinnettles Gold, then 4000 tea plants (an acre) are outside in our beautiful walled garden. These have been grown from seed which we imported from Nepal in 2016. We also have half an acre (2000) of ex soviet Georgian tea bushes that have now just come into bearing. In the middle of this is our small micro processing room for producing our Kinnettles Gold Tea.
Our Tea production:
In 2007 when we first started and up until 2015 it was impossible to get tea seed on a commercial scale, so we grew our tea from cuttings from tea plants in Cornwall. These struggled outside in the field (due to their shallow root system) so we took the decision to use polytunnels for protection. We pluck these plants grown from cuttings throughout April to September thanks to the season extension provided by the tunnels. We repay the plant for giving us beautiful leaf, with applications of liquid manures made from comfrey, nettles and docks which are all growing in the immediate vicinity around us. Our farm philosophy is one of regenerative agriculture, and conservation farming which is different from organic. We are not registered as organic, however our tea is grown totally organicall
Our tea processing:
We have a micro processing room where we hand roll our Kinnettles Gold and use techniques relevant to Scotland to create our beautiful teas. Another of them being Five Gold Rings which is a collaboration of five tea gardens on the East Coast of Scotland using micro equipment to assist with pressure on the leaf when rolling. We also make teas for our tours so our guests can taste our single estate ‘The Kinnettle’ along with our green tea which is also not sold commercially - currently we are working on an oolong, so the adventure and journey continues!
Our Horticultural experience:
Our Horticultural experience: Back in 2016 a wealth of experience was garnered when TGS came together and imported seed from Nepal and ex Soviet Georgia. This seed was grown in glasshouses by Walker-Munro Farms with a collective push by the TGS group to help so we could populate all our tea gardens with tea plants. This gave us experience in growing tea in Scotlands complex climate and if you would like to come and visit our tea garden we can tell you more about it!
Follow our journey on instagram @kinnettlesgold
Visit our tea garden by clicking on the link:Kinnettles Tea Garden
